sixteen tons
by faces sunward
Summary: he'll be trapped down in this hellhole til his lungs turn to black. — byron, roark


_some people say a man is made out of mud  
a poor man's made out of muscle and blood  
muscle and blood and skin and bone  
a mind that's weak and a back that's strong_

.

His grandpappy is as tough as a Steelix and as crooked as the old juniper tree by the river. His face is a mass of wrinkles. His great beard, stained with soot, is wiry and pepper-grey. He sits in his rocking chair on the front porch, grizzled hands gripping the armrests like talons, and watches the world through a haze of acrid pipe smoke.

"What're you waitin' for, grandpappy?" Byron asks one day, and the man turns his (surprisingly sharp) eyes to his grandson.

"Use yer head, boy," he rasps. His voice is barely a whisper, gritty like sand and sharp rocks. "An old man like me, who ain't got a bone in his body that don't ache? I'm waitin' for Death, o' course."

"Why's that?" Byron tilts his head to the side. "Don'tcha like being alive, grandpappy?"

Those sharp eyes appraise him for a moment, and then the old man laughs – a wheezing sound that spirals into a bout of hoarse coughing. "I do, boy. I do," he says, after the coughing has ceased. "I like livin' very much. But my back is bent like a Tauros's horn, y'see. My lungs are like shriveled lumps of coal, from breathin' in that dirty mine air. My creakin' joints are tellin' me that it's time to call it quits, and I know it to be the blessed truth. I seen too much and I hurt too much to keep going any longer. It's time for me to rest, my boy, and that's why I wait for Death day after day."

Byron recognizes the old man's tone. It's a tone that says "you'll understand someday". But in a sense, he already does. He may only be eight years old, but he's seen some things too, and they hurt just as much as a crooked back or charred black lungs. He's seen the fish belly up in the filthy river. He's seen a man suffocate on coal dust and grime. He's seen his older brother's body after the falling rocks crushed all his bones.

But Byron's not going to give in to Death just yet – life may be harsh, but he's got a lot of living left to do. He's got plans, you see. Plans to travel up over the mountains and see the world and all it has to offer. Plans to get away from the caustic air and the constant threat of disaster that hangs over the town like a cloud of miasma.

His momma says there's no way out.

"You're born in Oreburgh, you die in Oreburgh," she mutters, as she slaves away over the stove. Her once-smiling face is creased with premature lines, and her hands are covered in burns.

"Ain't that the truth," his grandpappy calls from the porch, barely audible over the creak of his old rocking chair. "Oh Lord, ain't that the truth."

.

_i was born one morning when the sun didn't shine  
i picked up my shovel and i walked to the mine  
i loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal  
and the strawboss said "well bless my soul"_

.

Byron's twelve years old when his daddy puts a pickaxe in his hands and says, "Son, it's time to go to work."

His momma won't look at him as he walks out the door, wearing his dead brother's boots and hard hat, and he wants to tell her not to worry but can't, 'cause his own throat is tight with anxiety and he might cry if he opens his mouth. And that just wouldn't be seemly. He's a man now, in his father's eyes. Real men don't get scared. Real men don't think back on every tragedy they've ever seen and imagine themselves in the place of the victim.

Real men don't hesitate to put their lives on the line, if it means a few more dollars to put towards tomorrow's supper.

His pa keeps a firm hand on his shoulder as they crowd inside the lift and go down, down, down into the noxious tunnels below. Byron's worried that his pa can feel him shaking, rattling like a terrified Cubone in his big ol' boots, but if he does he doesn't say a word. It gets harder to breathe as they go farther into the earth – the rocky walls seem to press down, suffocating, and the heat makes his heavy clothes sticky with sweat. The distant clangs of metal against metal grow louder and louder until his ears are ringing and his mind is spinning and the air is almost too foul and close to breathe.

_I want to go back_, he thinks. _I don't wanna be here no more._

But then his pa's grip tightens on his shoulder, and he knows it's too late. Once you've gone below, the men say, you can never resurface. Not really. Your mind'll always be stuck in the mines, digging that next hole, hauling that next cartful of ore, watching with wary eyes for any sign of instability. Byron's a mining man now, and just like his grandpappy before him he'll be stuck down in this hellhole til his back bends and his lungs turn to black.

The lift grinds to halt, and Byron steps into the inferno.

.

It's tough, grueling work, but someone's gotta do it.

(Byron just wishes, in hindsight, that he wasn't that someone.)

He raises his pickaxe with trembling hands and lets it fall, missing the chunk of rock entirely. His eyes are blurred and burning from the acrid combination of sweat and coal dust, and even the slightest movement sends him into a frantic wheezing, coughing fit. It scares him, because he's learned to hear that desperate gasp for air and think of death, of somber sermons and stone-faced children, of haphazard gravestones and empty homes.

_I don't wanna die down here_, he thinks. _Lord, please don't let me die in this place._

With aching arms he hefts the pickaxe once more, but something catches his eye – a strange stone lying by his foot, illuminated by the dim lantern light. He bends down and picks it up, then turns it over in his hand, brushing away the dust. He can't see too well, and his mind is hazy from the toxic fumes, but he knows that this must be something special. He can feel ridges and patterns along its surface, oddly smooth against his fingertips, and Byron glances around warily; slips it into his pocket for safekeeping.

And then he keeps on marching forward, as mining men are wont to do.

.

_i was born one morning, it was drizzling rain  
fighting and trouble are my middle name  
i was raised in the canebrake by an old mama lion  
ain't no high tone woman make me walk the line_

.

The year he turns fourteen, his pa gives him his first Pokemon, a scrawny little Shieldon with scars all down its back. It stares up at him with dull eyes, as if it can see its sad fate laid out before it, and he feels sudden sorrow surge through his veins.

Byron reaches down to pat the little creature on the head. "You're just like me, aren't you?" he asks. "We're two of a kind, you and me."

The year he turns fifteen, a drought and a lightning strike set the hills around Oreburgh all ablaze. The grime-choked river smolders for five straight days and nights, making the air shimmer with pollution, and the women and children all take to wearing old rags 'round their faces.

To Byron, the air seems refreshingly clean after the poisonous darkness down below.

The year he turns sixteen, his baby sister loses the good fight against the disease that'd been rotting her pure little heart since birth.

This time, Byron's momma only cries for one week instead of two.

The year he turns seventeen, his pa gets his leg caught in some heavy machinery. It chews him up real good – nearly loses his life 'cause of all the blood loss – and soon after they move in with Uncle Jay, his pa no longer being able to support the family.

"No use for cripples in the mine," one woman says, tsk-tsk-ing as if the accident were somehow his pa's fault. "They're lucky they got a family like that. If it were me, I wouldn't take 'em in, no way no how."

As they leave Byron looks back at their empty house, with the gaping windows and sagging porch, siding stained black with soot, and thinks that he ought to be depressed. He grew up here, after all. It's his home, and now he's leaving it behind. (But truth be told, he can't think of many happy memories.)

The year he turns eighteen… Well, that's the year the workers come up over the mountain in their all-terrain vehicles and set to digging The Tunnel. _Oreburgh won't be a secluded valley town much longer_, folks say, in anxious, wary tones (as if this is somehow a bad thing). _There'll be people from all over comin' here soon enough._

Byron smiles when he hears this.

"See, Momma?" he says. "I told you I'd get outta here someday."

She shakes her head and looks away.

.

He's twenty-four years old and he's watching the woman of his dreams drive away, disappearing 'round the bend in the dusty dirt road. The note on his two-year-old son's bedside table says, "I'm sorry. I always wanted more than this."

He wonders what she expected from a sad-eyed mining boy with a dying father, heartbroken mother, and not a penny to his name.

.

_if you see me coming better step aside  
a lot of men didn't, a lot of men died  
one fist of iron, the other of steel  
if the right one don't get you then the left one will_

.

Roark is five when they shut down the old mine for good.

"Simple awful," the health inspector says, shaking his head and sighing. "The sheer number of deaths caused by unsafe conditions in this mine is mind-boggling. There was a cave-in nearly every year due to weak support beams, the machinery was extremely low-grade and caused countless deaths, and God, the air quality down there! It's ludicrous how long this mine was operational, all things considered."

"I know," Byron says quietly. "Believe me, I know."

He watches wordlessly as the entrance to the mine is sealed off. And though a part of him is elated, relieved, wholly satisfied (as if this were his revenge), another part of him feels like it has been buried deep in the tunnels, left to suffocate in the toxic heat. He feels stranded in a strange, desolate place, at the side of an unfamiliar road with no one in sight, no map and no idea of where to go next.

Oreburgh is dying. Without the mine, what does this town have left? He looks around and sees little more than ramshackle cabins and cracked, arid earth. Here and there, a few stunted trees stretch their parched branches toward the sky, pleading for something to save them from damnation.

"Daddy, look!"

Roark is tugging on his pant leg, holding up an interesting stone for him to inspect. The boy's interest in rocks and minerals never fails to amuse Byron – _how ironic_, he thinks, _that the one thing I can't escape is the one thing he loves most_.

"Is it a fossil like yours?" he asks excitedly, bouncing up and down.

Byron ruffles Roark's hair affectionately. "Not this time, kiddo," he says, appreciating the familiar weight in his pocket. The fossil he found by chance fifteen years ago remains with him today, a reminder of more dubious times, of simplistic goals and an uncertain future.

The mine is gone, yes, but still he remains, standing alone beneath the empty sky.

.

When the woman from the Sinnoh League arrives, he comes to a startling realization.

He hates this town, for what it has done to him. For what it has done to everyone he loves or loved, once upon a time. He thinks of his grandpappy with his charcoal-black lungs, of his brother all crushed beyond recognition, of his sister whose medicine they couldn't afford. He thinks of his daddy's missing leg and his swiftly-delivered insanity, of his mother's burnt hands brushing the hair from his eyes. And as he thinks of these memories he finally, finally understands. He has to save this town. There is no other way.

"You should build the last gym here in Oreburgh," he says to the woman. "As for the Gym Leader position… If there's no one available, I might be able to volunteer."

She raises a pencil-thin eyebrow and glances around.

"Doesn't look like much," is her only comment.

"It's not," he says. "Not yet."

.

.

_you load sixteen tons, what do you get?  
another day older and deeper in debt  
saint peter don't you call me 'cause i can't go  
i owe my soul to the company store_


End file.
